The route the mortal had uploaded to them had been accurate, thus far. The way before them was open. Portals unlocked, allowing them unimpeded progress into the heart of the creaking battleship.
They walked kilometres through the bowels of the ship, traversing its squalid underworld. Only as they drew near their target did they begin to rise into the main corridors and chambers of the battleship.
They traversed a vertical access shaft, hand over hand, hauling themselves up the tightly bound steel cable running down its centre. They ghosted down corridors unimpeded. Every door along their route was open. All vid-cameras blinked off as they approached, or turned aside as they loped by, moving as a pack.
They encountered three mortals and one legionary in the upper levels. The Bloodborn dispatched the serfs without breaking stride, snapping their spines with a vicious crack or caving in their heads with the butt of their weapons.
The legionary emerged from a side-chamber halfway along the line of the Bloodborn. Three of them were on him instantly. He smashed the faceplate of one before he was taken down; arms pinned him, and a power blade was rammed up under his chin and into his brainpan.
The time for subtlety had passed. They left him where he fell and picked up the pace, loping ever onward.
It was time. It was time to kill a legend.
Chapter 8
In her dreams, Skoral was powerless. She was in the pits, bleeding from a dozen wounds. Her feet were bare on the red sands. The heavens above were filled with roaring fire. Thousands of faceless onlookers jeered and screamed in the stands.
She should have had a weapon, but she was unarmed. She fought a huge, vat-grown brute wearing a snarling Legion helm. One of its arms was mechanised, its fingers clicking with pistons. In its other hand it swung a length of heavy chain.
Dreagher stood nearby, expression stern. Beside him was Maven, a wry smile upon his handsome, lean face.
She was slow. Her feet were heavy and dragged in the sands. She tripped, struggled to her feet and tripped again. Sweat was running from her body in rivulets.
She had no weapon. She needed a weapon.
There was a machete on the sand, near Maven and Dreagher. She tried to call out to them to throw it to her, but the red dust caught in her throat. The only sound that came out was a choking rasp. Dreagher stood unmoving. Maven laughed.
Her enemy came at her. Her legs were leaden. She could not move. The monster’s chain snapped out and caught around her arm, wrapping tight. He yanked it, hard. Her arm came off, ripped from the socket.
Things squirmed forth from within her, exiting her body amidst the gushing spray of blood. They writhed and squealed, using her body and her blood as a gateway between the warp and reality. The pain was incredible. Snapping tentacles ripping through her body, bursting out through the gaping stump of her shoulder, and she screamed.
Skoral woke to pain, drenched in sweat, adrenaline racing through her system. She suffered a moment of panic as she realised she was missing her left arm, before she remembered.
A nightmare. It had seemed so real, but it had been nothing but a nightmare.
It took her a second to realise where she was – enclosed in a recovery pod within the apothecarion secundus. She lay there for a few breaths, calming herself. The stump of her shoulder itched.
She heard a chime nearby, but ignored it. It could wait. She scratched her bound shoulder and felt a staple dislodge.
‘Idiot,’ she said. She began to unbind her bandages. They smelt rank, as if the wound were festering.
Something moved beneath her bandages, making them ripple, and her breath caught in her throat.
‘No,’ she whimpered.
Yes, hissed a voice in her head.
Snapping, thorn-tipped tentacles burst from her wound, punching out through the bandages, splattering the inside of her recovery pod with blood. She screamed.
She woke again, this time for real.
Her breathing was fast and shallow, and the bed sheet beneath her was drenched with feverish sweat. Blood had leaked from her bound shoulder stump, soaking her bandages.
She hit the release of her pod, which opened slowly. She swung her legs over the side and pushed herself upright, grimacing. She rubbed her hand across her face and took in a long breath, attempting to slow her racing heartbeat.
It was often this way while traversing through the aether. Dreams and nightmares were magnified far beyond anything she’d ever experienced in real space. Even ensconced within the protective Geller field that kept the predations of the Sea of Souls at bay, its presence was always felt.
Sometimes it manifested as terrifying and disturbed dreams, at other times as uncharacteristic melancholia, blind rages that came from nowhere, crippling anxiety that ate away at a person from within, vivid hallucinations or psychotic episodes.
On rare occasions, physical manifestations from the warp took form within the ship. Sometimes the World Eaters would seek them out, burning them to ash that dissipated into the ether with bursts of promethium. At other times, they’d ignore them. It was generally only the mortals aboard the ship that were taken by these apparitions, anyway.
On one horrific three-month warp transit, Skoral had been haunted by the presence of a whispering, eyeless crone. She’d been there in the shadows, creeping forwards in the corner of her vision whenever she turned. She’d been there, stroking Skoral’s hair when she fell at last into a fitful, exhausted slumber after days without rest. She’d jolted awake instantly in shock, and the whispering crone recoiled. Her fingers were like a spider’s legs. Skoral’s flesh was icy and numb where she’d been touched. That particular manifestation had haunted her for months, before disappearing. Still, she’d been lucky.
Three times she’d seen crew members possessed from within by hateful beings from beyond the veil. Each of those times there had been deaths involved. She still bore the soul-scars of the last such encounter she’d witnessed.
Some could not take it. Many chose suicide rather than face yet another night-cycle aboard the ship while in warp transit. She’d known of a score of others who simply vanished. Most were never seen again. A few were found, horribly mutilated, their skin ripped off, hanging from chains in the low decks – but then, it could well have been one of the Legion who had performed that grisly ritual, not something of the warp.
For a time, she had not thought she would ever recover – but she had. She was resilient beyond the measure of most other mortals, she’d come to realise. She was a fighter. She could survive any pain, any discomfort, any trauma. She would endure. She was strong.
Gingerly, she unwrapped the bloody bandages from her shoulder stump. She could still not rationalise that this was her flesh, her body. It did not seem real.
The bandages were stuck to the wound, and she gritted her teeth as she peeled them away. A synthflesh graft had been sutured over the wound, its edge puckered and pink. Blood was leaking between the staples where the wound had reopened in her sleep. The whole area was an ugly shade of purple, but she was satisfied with how it was healing, despite this latest minor tear.
She’d done the majority of the surgery herself, pumped with powerful analgesics. It was not an experience that she had any wish to repeat. The effort to reroute her severed arteries, which had been clamped off by her medicae servitors while the Emperor’s Children legionary fought Ruokh, had been almost too much for her. She’d passed out twice during the surgery, each time brought back to consciousness by jolting adrenaline shots administered by her servitors.
Skoral grimaced. Phantom pain throbbed down her nonexistent limb. She scrabbled at the steel tray beside her pod, snatching up a syringe-gun. With two clicks of the trigger, she injected painkillers into her flesh, emptying two vials’ worth. The area was instantly numbed, and she sighed in relief.
She saw that her vox-bracelet, placed on a steel-topped
side-bench nearby, was blinking and vibrating subtly. Incoming call. Leaving it where it was on the side-table, she spoke aloud her command.
‘Answer vox,’ she said, probing at her shoulder-wound with her fingers.
‘Where are you?’ said a voice. Maven.
‘Well, hello to you too,’ she said.
‘Where are you?’ he said, his tone urgent, serious.
‘Apothecarion secundus. Where do you think?’
‘Get out,’ said Maven. ‘Get out now.’
‘What are you–’ she said, turning as she heard the main portal hiss open.
‘Manual override accepted,’ said the muffled voice of the servitor at the door outside. Its voice was cut off with a wet, ripping sound. Skoral frowned.
The sound of a bolter discharging hit her like a slap to the forehead. The sound was shockingly loud, and the head of one of her medicae servitors simply disappeared in a red mist. It remained upright for a moment, then slumped to the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut.
Galerius shook his head.
‘This is insanity,’ he said. ‘The real enemy is out there, hunting us. Already it has hounded us here, to the never-edge of madness. Do you think Dorn, Guilliman, Russ and the rest will simply give up their pursuit? They will hunt us down until all who fought under the Eye of Horus are dead. If we are to have any chance of survival, any chance at all, we cannot wage war against each other and let the weakened survivors be picked apart by the lapdogs of the Imperium. We will never be able to hit back at them, to besiege Terra and actually win, if we are divided.’
‘I don’t care about taking Terra. That’s a fool’s dream, now,’ said Dreagher. ‘All I care about is the Legion, nothing else.’
‘Well, it will be destroyed if you let this situation escalate,’ said Galerius, gesturing to the standoff between the two Legion armadas. ‘Yes, we of the Third Legion are arrogant. Yes, we look down upon you as savages, but there is a warrior’s respect there too. We are brothers. Convince them to help your fleet resupply, refuel, rearm, whatever it is you need, then leave this place and go where you will. Go and find that insane daemon that was once your liege lord. Go and throw your lives away in a pointless, suicidal attack against Ultramar or Terra, if you must. But don’t be stupid enough to let this escalate into conflict.’
Skoral reacted to the gunfire instantly, rolling from her recovery pod and falling heavily to the floor. She lay low. The deck was icy cold against her skin. She was still connected to her pod by a pair of intravenous drip-lines, she realised. She tore off the tape holding them to her skin and ripped the needles from her arm, letting them drip onto the deck floor.
‘Skoral? Are you there?’ came Maven’s strained voice from her bracelet.
‘End vox,’ she said, and it went silent.
Heavy booted footsteps entered the room, followed closely by two more deafening booms. Each shot made her whole body jolt. The wall behind Skoral splattered with blood; milky, artificial synth-blood. It ran down the wall in thick rivulets. Skull fragments were embedded in the wall panels.
Skoral crept backwards on her knees and her one arm, being as silent as possible, feeling unbalanced and awkward. She kept the recuperation pod between her and the newcomers. Between the low legs of the pod she could see red-armoured boots and bronze-edged greaves. At least half a dozen legionaries. She could see two of her servitors down, ripped apart by the horrendously powerful bolt fire.
She didn’t know who it was that had come into her apothecarion or why they had come, but she was under no illusions. If they found her, they would kill her.
They were not moving. Scanning for movement, for anything still living, she realised. She froze. The silence was oppressive. She stopped breathing, for fear that the sound would alert them to her presence. She heard a series of dull clicks. She’d been around the Legion long enough to know what that was; closed vox traffic. The legionaries were talking to each other.
They split up and began to move through the apothecarion. They were being methodical, looking for survivors. These were not the actions of legionaries lost to the Nails. This was a planned operation. That thought was not a comforting one.
One of the legionaries was coming towards her location, either drawn to her gaping recuperation pod or – oh gods – her gently swinging intravenous drip-feeds. She could hear the sound of his armour as he came closer, droning angrily, like a swarm of insects. She could hear the grind and whirr of his servos. His steps were heavy, making the deck reverberate. Three steps, and he’d see her.
She scrambled back, moving as quietly as possible, and cowered behind the solid block of the apothecarion’s wet station. She heard the Space Marine step around her recuperation pod and pause, scanning where she had been just seconds before. He would see the swaying drip-feeds. There was no way that he could not. Again she heard the click of his closed vox.
Four bolt shots in quick succession came from the other side of the room. With the last shot she heard plex-glass shatter, and a gush of water exploded outwards onto the deck floor. The rejuvenat-vats. One of the Legion was suspended in that regenerative liquid. Kholak. He wasn’t properly conscious. Skoral herself had administered the serum that had kicked in his sus-an membrane, bringing on an induced form of suspended animation. A fifth shot, followed almost instantly by a wet detonation, which likely ended his life.
What in the hells was going on? These were not legionaries of Dreagher’s echelon, and she felt certain they did not answer to Argus Brond either. Where had they come from? What was their goal? And how had they come here without being stopped?
A thought hit her. Dreagher did not know they were here.
She knew that there were a multitude of sub-factions within the Legion vying for dominance. This was likely a squad of one of her master’s enemies that had infiltrated the Defiant. But for what purpose?
She needed to let Dreagher know.
Her responder bracelet. She cursed herself for a fool. Why had she not grabbed it when she had the chance? The painkillers still in her system were clouding her judgement.
The World Eater was so close she could feel the electric tingle of his armour, powered by the miniature reactor plant embedded in his armoured backpack. He began to move again.
Scarce daring to breathe, she backed along the length of the wet station. Her route took her through a pool of warm liquid. Blood textured with brain matter and shards of skull. It soaked into her gown at her knees, and covered her feet and hand.
Moving as quickly as she could while still remaining silent, Skoral continued to back up, sliding round the corner of the bench. She pressed her back up against it just as the World Eater stepped around the wet station.
Her heart was beating thunderously in her chest. She prayed that he would not hear it. She heard him pause.
Taking a chance, she half-crawled, half-dragged herself around the end of the bench, moving back to her recuperation pod. She cast a quick glance about her. It did not appear as though any of the legionaries were looking in her direction. Reaching up, she felt along the edge of the bench, groping blindly for her transponder bracelet. After a moment of searching, she found what she sought.
She slipped the wristband over her hand, and lifted the tiny hole that was its transponder to her mouth, cupping it in her palm.
‘Dreagher,’ she said, as quietly as possible.
Dreagher paused his pacing to and fro within the enclosed view-station as the incoming vox chimed. He clicked it off, silencing it.
The light within the room was dim. The bruised glare of the warp tinged everything red.
‘If you are not going to send me back to my Legion, or use me in any negotiations, then why show me this?’ said Galerius. ‘It seems a pointless cruelty. It pleases me beyond measure to know that my Legion has survived, but not to allow me to be with my brothers… I would perhaps rather not have
known they were so close. They seem further from me now than ever.’
Dreagher’s vox chimed again. With a snarl of frustration, he clicked it off.
‘A war-meet has been called, to determine the course of action the Twelfth takes,’ said Dreagher. ‘It is set to gather even as we speak. You said that the Legion has become factionalised. You are right. There are those who wish to fight, those who wish to walk away, and those who do not care either way.’
‘And you?’
‘I want to see a united Twelfth Legion,’ said Dreagher. ‘And I want to see us rebuild. This could be the place where we do it.’
‘You’re torn,’ said Galerius. ‘You do not know where to lay your support.’
‘So convince me,’ said Dreagher.
Skoral mouthed a silent curse. Dreagher was not answering. She pressed a hidden rune upon her bracelet’s inner surface, and a tiny pinprick of light upon the bracelet began to blink.
It was only then she registered the bloody prints she’d tracked round from the other side of the wet station.
Again she cursed herself for a fool. Frantically, she tried to wipe the worst of it off her feet using her medicae gown, but it was a useless effort. There was nothing that could be done.
She had to get out of here. Now.
Moving in a low crouch, she ducked around the side of her recuperation pod, angling for the exit.
No. Two legionaries stood to either side of the portal. That way was blocked.
She glimpsed them briefly, armoured in baroque, spike-edged red plate, bedecked with skulls and kill-markings. There was a brilliant flare of light and a hissing roar, accompanied by a hot chemical stink that stung her nostrils. They were sealing the door. They were sealing her in.
She froze for what seemed an eternity, but could only have been a heartbeat. Her mind was a blank. There was no way out.
That moment of inaction almost killed her. A legionary stepped by her, so close that she could have reached out and touched his heavily battle-scarred plate. He did not see her cowering on the floor – his attention was elsewhere.
Khârn: Eater of Worlds Page 9